Abusing Freedom

“Freedom is destroyed not only by its retraction; it is also devastated by its abuse.” —Ravi Zacharias

Our culture is changing fast. Things that would have seemed absurd to most people’s moral intuitions are now championed. Even some things that still seem odd are accepted because our culture accepted a definition of freedom some time ago that is playing out. 

Radical moral relativism, the view that individuals can define their own morality, has led to radical relativism in general. People think freedom means they can define their own reality. There’s no objective moral standard. And now there’s no objective standard at all that should be imposed on an individual to restrict their freedom of choice. Every individual defines themselves. 

So Bruce Jenner becomes Caitlyn Jenner. A white woman claims she’s black because that’s how she feels. People champion transableism and transspeciesism because they feel inside that they are disabled or cat or rabbit. One feminist said that freedom means the doctor has no right to declare the sex of a baby at birth, despite the body parts that are obvious, because that child should define that for themselves.

There’s nothing objective to constrain us. This has become established in U.S. law already, and it has serious implications. The Declaration of Independence, which is fundamental to all U.S. law including the Constitution, states that our rights are established by God. Because human rights are objective, governments must respect them and cannot violate them. But if there is nothing objective to constrain our freedom, then there’s nothing objective to constrain the government. Our rights become whatever we declare them to be and whatever the government at any time and place declares them to be, changing with the fashions of the day.

This is where we are in our culture now. It’s a very dangerous place to be in. As quickly as the court can bestow a new right, it can be taken away.

It reminds me of Sir Thomas More’s response to his pupil Roper: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?” It’s naïve and short-sighted to change the law unmoored from any objective standard because it can be changed in any way possible then. 

The astounding thing about a very few documents in history is that government power was limited because citizens had rights above the government. But when societies no longer recognize this, the governments are back in the position of defining the rights of citizens. As Os Guinness has said, “When the fashionable new ‘right’ trumps the traditional rights, then rights merely arise from power.”

The tragedy of our culture celebrating the new definition of individual freedom is that it has also destroyed what has protected us from tyranny. As Ravi Zacharias pointed out, we’ve abused our freedom and we’ve destroyed it.

Comments

[Josh Reynolds]

Well written article. Thank you

[Jeff Samelson]

It might be worth clarifying that the quotation from Thomas More (one of my favorites since high school) is actually a line from the play, "A Man for All Seasons", meaning that it is fiction placed in his mouth, not a real quotation (I can't comment as to how well it might represent something More would really have said, though it's interesting that a new work of fiction, "Wolf Hall", has a much different take on More's character).

[John Moore]

It's not relativism. People like Caitlyn Jenner claim they really are women, as an objective fact. Gay people might very well wish they were straight, but they can't keep struggling against the objective fact that they are gay. These people aren't choosing their preferred realities like some relativist. That's too facile an explanation. It's like a strawman that Christians love to keep knocking down. But you're missing the real foe.

[Lane]

I came across the following statement from a 'doctor' the other day which pretty much sums up the relativistic worldview that even the medical profession has adopted--it would be interesting to ask this doctor what research she is referring too in regards to the 'actual physical, chromosomal, genetic identity elements'--a slight of hand to slip in the 'gay gene' 'I was born gay' claim:

"But Hernandez-Ramdwar says being transethnic and being transgender is not the same thing.
“They do not choose to be transgender – they just are,” she says pointing out that transgender people are often dealing with actual physical, chromosomal, genetic identity elements. “On the other hand, if someone claims that they are ‘transracial’, in my opinion, they are choosing to ‘perform’ what they assume to be an ethnicity that is attached to a certain race in a certain context.” Complete article here: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/is-it-really-possible-to-be-transethnic-190115424.html

[JHallman]

It's not relativism. People like Caitlyn Jenner claim they really are women, as an objective fact.

Interesting claim John, but how can Jenner's claim be "objective" in the normally accepted sense of the term? When we say something is truly objective, we measure the objectivity of the claim in light of a standard outside of ourselves NOT by how we perceive our claim to be. What does Jenner appeal to outside of his own subjective perceptions that is in any way objective?

[John Moore]

The idea is that womanhood is something more than genitalia or chromosomes. Womanhood also includes something in the brain, according to this thinking. And there is an objective fact about neurons and connections in Caitlyn Jenner's brain. This physical brain structure could be something that Jenner cannot change.

No one thinks being a woman is nothing more than subjectively thinking you're a woman. If you have a particular set of physical structures in your brain, then you really are a woman, even if you might wish you weren't.

[Brett Krienke]

John, do you disagree with feminists that there are no male or female minds? And if so, do you believe like the naturalists, that we are merely chemicals in motion, devoid of Free will?

[KWM]

If you have a particular set of physical structures in your brain, then you really are a woman, even if you might wish you weren't.

Doesn’t this all get so confusing? I mean, first we’re told that little girls and boys are the same. That boys don’t generally like trucks and girls dolls – it’s about environment, parenting, expectations, blah, blah, blah.

Then we’re told about “physical structures in your brain” that dictate whether we are male or female (i.e. determine whether or not we have correct genitalia or incorrect genitalia).

The agenda is quite obvious. Destroy structure. Rip it down.

The problem with that strategy is that you really can’t keep your story straight.